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I have made this puzzle myself and I hope that you all will enjoy it. It's called "Linkwords" and basically, you have to find 4 words in a 4x4 grid which have a link to another word i.e. the Linkword. The four words are not always of equal length: they can be 5-5-3-3, 6-4-3-3, 5-4-4-3, and so forth, as well.

Here is an example:

U T M A
E C U E
M N N R
R A E H

The four words are:
NATURE, MUM, CARE and HEN.

And the Linkword is: MOTHER

MOTHER NATURE
MUM is a informal word for MOTHER
MOTHERCARE is a company
A MOTHER HEN is someone who sees to the needs of others

NOTE: You don't have to give the reasons why the words have a link with the Linkword, and all the words don't have to have a separate reason - 2+ words can have a same reason for the link.

Feel free to do your own Linkwords puzzles if you want, however:
- All the words need to be at least 3 letters long
- Make sure that the reasons for the links aren't too complicated; keep it simple and do-able

I am going to give you another Linkwords puzzle for you to do for yourselves. Good luck and I hope you like it!

E E L A
S T N I
I D I E
S H S R

Do the letters in each word have to be adjacent to each other?

Johnny Canuck wrote:Do the letters in each word have to be adjacent to each other?

No

I've had a go, got about ten or more sets of 4 words but can't see anything to link the buggers. Might have a go tommorow

Is everyone struggling and do you want me to reveal one of the words to get you started?

Just had a look at this. The four words are:

SET, DIAL, RISE and SHINE

and the connection is sun. Nice puzzle, Bradley - don't think you explained that each letter is used only once though, or it took me a minute to realise that anyway.

EDIT: Sorry, hidden the answers

Well done, Bob! Apologies if I didn't make the rules of the puzzle clear enough.

Here's another one:

O L L A
E A E C
L S Y C
K T G I

I hope this one is easier for everyone and helps you understand the puzzle better.

If there are any queries, feel free to ask!

Keep picking up two that could be related but going into a dead end, like SKY/ICE (scraper) or CITY/LAKE (geography). kljajwdkawjdkmawd

Andy Platt wrote:Keep picking up two that could be related but going into a dead end, like SKY/ICE (scraper) or CITY/LAKE (geography). kljajwdkawjdkmawd

Keep going, Andy! You'll get there!

Think I'm better at scrambling them into barely coherent sentences;

Cagy like Cates, lol.

Any progress yet, Andy?

Negative. I even roped in Dan to help me but we couldn't get it. The K and the Y must be the key to getting it (ironically a word that i've tried working with), can't see it.

A A C C E E G I K L L L O S T Y - just putting the letters in a line and in order to see if that helps.

It does not. Maybe if you throw one of the words out and see if we can follow it up?
It's a novel concept, I just think it's a bit difficult. If it went into a newspaper or something then it'd need a clue, cos not everyone's as clever as Bob!

OK. One of the words is LILY. Think of a word that links with it and try to find another word in the puzzle that links with the same word and the rest should be plain sailing.

Almost. You've got the Linkword right but only 2/4 on the words.

OK let's roll with LILY GATE SEA CLOCK

Guessing that's right. Seems a bit more sensible than ECO, but I thought with how many google hits ECO WATER got then it was a possibility.

Correct! Got there in the end.

Just out of curiosity, are there any improvements needed for the puzzle to make it more solvable, as it looks like several people are struggling with it?

Hmm, starting off with one of the words might be right, but might make the solve too fast. The first one got solved, so maybe I'm just a bit thick, lol.
You could start with one word already offered but also throw in a decoy letter to balance out the difficulty again. Might be interesting.

If you wanted a go yourself try this one:

T H O R
N I C K
D E N T
K I T I

Throwing out a few clues, use one, none, or a combination, as you see fit...

One of the words is: TIN


Word lengths: One is six letters, one is four letters, and two are three letters.


Clue that probably makes it far too easy: The 6th day

TIN ROCKET HIT KIND

Linkword: MAN

Correct, use any of the hints?

Yeah. ROCKET instantly hit me but I wasn't entirely sure how to follow on from that, so I looked at the hints and after thinking long and hard about it, I finally got there in the end.

HORN, DICK, TITI, erm

Ian Volante wrote:HORN, DICK, TITI, erm

And KENT. It's part of a girl, I am told.

Mark Deeks wrote:

Ian Volante wrote:HORN, DICK, TITI, erm

And KENT. It's part of a girl, I am told.

Posh git.

After consideration, I have decided to make this puzzle a bit easier as several people seem to be struggling with it by including a hint which, like the words in the puzzle, links with the Linkword. The hint will be hidden in case people want to solve the puzzle without it.

Note: The hint will never be one of the words in the puzzle.

Here is a puzzle with a hint:

A R Y C
O G A E
D E W S
R H P A

Hint: GIANT